An Evening Project: SNES Controller Casing Swap

Recently, I decided that I really needed to get my Linux SNES emulation going.  After seeing some of the sexy pixel shaders and XML filters that are available these days, how could I not?  Okay, maybe I could just continue playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, or work on my own game, but I needed to get some oldschool back in my life.  Hey, maybe for the sake of research for my game.  Whatever.

I hopped online and ordered an SNES to USB adapter with two controller ports, and two generic SNES controllers - because the two genuine controllers I got with my actual SNES both have broken R buttons.  Don't ask me how that happens; apparently Nintendo used cheap-ass R button chips that break after 21 years.

I got the generic SNES controllers in the mail today.  They work fine, and so does the USB adapter, but they look like this:

It's clear that these controllers were molded from the original SNES controller, which is a plus.  Unfortunately, as you can see, there are a number of problems:
-The color is an ugly, dark grey.
-The label which surrounds the Y, X, B and A buttons is popped up -- this happened almost immediately after opening these things.
-The plastic edges of each molded piece are untrimmed and look shoddy.
-The shoulder buttons sit crooked.


The things you can't see in photos:
-The controllers are unsettlingly light.  Not that the original controllers are heavy, per say, but these knockoffs are clearly made of really cheap plastic.
-The button action is just wrong.  The buttons just feel flaccid and unresponsive; especially R and L.

I grumbled about it for a few minutes.  I don't know what I was expecting, after paying $7.99 total for both controllers, with free shipping.  Then I realized that I have two perfectly good SNES controller casings.  The "Mr. Fix-It" instinct that I've been cultivating over the last few years kicked in.

I opened up one of the generics, and one of my originals, to check out the situation:

As you can see here, there's a bit of a difference.  The generic version has a number of what I presume to be money-saving features:

1. It has a smaller chip board, which relies on a few extra protrusions, added to the plastic mold, to be held in place. The original SNES controller chipboard fills out the casing almost completely.
2.  Its shoulder button chips are held in place by additional plastic protrusions.  The original SNES controller holds its shoulder button chips firmly in place with the chip board.  I guess it makes sense that plastic would cost less than chipboard.
3. The cord is shorter, and wired directly onto the chipboard.  The original SNES controller has a modular cord, which can be unplugged and swapped out.
4. The shoulder buttons are one molded piece, each.  The original SNES controller shoulder buttons were held in place by and pivoted on a very small metal dowel (dowel joint).

Here's a photo of the chip boards, without casing:

Which is which?  Hard to tell.

And, here's a photo of the casings:

Note how extra-shitty the generic one looks when it's right there next to the original.

Next step: throw the generic guts into the genuine casing and see how they fit.

The shoulder button chipboards were completely unfettered in the original casing.  While this might be a quality I respect in a person, or a bird, it would be a problem for my controller.  I needed to improvise.

Perfect.  Other side:

At that point, I had to make a decision.  Try to secure the main chipboard somehow?  I had it lined up with the center peg (between Start and Select), and verified that each button was making correct contact.  I considered the fact that I'd opened these up before to clean the contacts, and the button action-rubber (or whatever the hell you want to call it) is almost always stuck to the chipboard.  I figured, hey - it's intimate enough inside of the controller case that I can safely doubt the lightweight chipboard will move around in there unless I'm throwing my controller across the room regularly.  I don't have kids yet,  and I never developed much of a controller-abusing habit (apart from occasionally showing them a middle finger), so I decide it'll be okay: Let's close this sucker up and try it out.

 And, hey.  Worked like a charm!  I repeated the process with controller #2, said goodbye to the generic casings,

and settled in, with my newfound appreciation for the love Nintendo's manufacturers put into their hardware, to play one of my favorite games; one which requires liberal use of both L and R buttons.  Cheers!

--Sam

Next you'll tell me that man can fly!

Where's this blog been? Who knows? I'll just pretend like I just got back from the bathroom.

For someone who is so very geeky in so many ways, I have always fallen short in one department: gadgetry. While I can certainly appreciate a good gadget, I've never been an early adopter, in part because, etched deep within my bones, I have a cheapskateness that prevents me from going out and plunking down money (that I might not technically have anyway) on some new-fan-dangled whatsit. I didn't even have a mobile phone until 2004, and since then my phone has always just been, in the words of Farva from Super Troopers, "whatever's free." Furthermore, I've always regarded Smartphone-ism much like I view other religions/sects: you are free to practice, but I have no desire to join you or to discuss your beliefs.

But recently the eminently practical Mrs. Workerbot (rightly) decided that I should live in the actual 21st century, at least telephonically. To that end, she has kindly provided me, on the occasion of my recent birthday, with one of these. (She has, however, allowed me to keep the muttonchops and to continue using the exclamation "My stars and garters!")

She also got a G2 for herself, which means she no longer carries around a personal (dumb) phone and a work Blackberry -- which is a good thing. The choice of phone was motivated primarily by these facts:
1) She is a T-Mobile customer and wanted to remain one (we're on a "family plan" now! that means we're a family!),
2) I was an AT&T customer and just didn't care one way or the other, and
3) this seemed to be the best phone that T-Mob offers.
(Also, 4) We want the same phone so we can be super matchy-matchy. We're a family!)

I won't be inflicting a super-detailed Engadget-style review on anyone, nor trying to convert new followers. Let the iPhoners and the Droidites and so on continue to live and worship in peace, I say. With those disclaimers, here are my reactions.

I've had the G2 all of five days now, and so far, so good -- though I should say that my expectations are low, never having carried around a tiny computer ... in my pants. It does the things that I consider important and/or relevant to me, and the Google integration is a natural extension of my existing deep dependence on the Googs as my Cloud Brain. It does these important/relevant things well enough that I don't be angry and make smash.

Call quality: uh ... it has ... some? I hate talking on the phone so much that it doesn't really matter. Any time I'm on a call, all I can hear is a mosquito-whine voice in my head saying "You suck at talking on the phone! Why don't you see if you can sound even more awkward? Maybe stumble over a common figure of speech that normal people could enunciate clearly even while sleeping on their stomachs. Perrrrrfect." So ... sure, call quality is fine for that.

Speed of Internetting: seems good most of the time. Who knows? I never had one before. T-Mobile has some upgraded, acronym-denoted network thing that is apparently not everywhere. All I know is, when I see a little "H" on my status bar, it means "Here be faster network speeds." When I see a "G," it means "Go stand somewhere else if you want to send that e-mail." When I see "E," it means "Even unto Bethlehem will this data pass before it reaches you, but reach you it shall." I haven't seen any other letters, and I don't want to.

Heaviness: it is heavy. However, I do not anticipate musculo-skeletal impairment or disfigurement, nor exhaustion from use.

Typing: The Swype thing -- where you just move your fingers over all the letters in a word without lifting it -- is crazy fast. It successfully recognizes/guesses when you mean to type words like "perfection" and "backflips" and "hellspawn." Actually, I made that last one up. (Instant test results: it thinks I meant to type "Helen." Oh well. That's kind of cute.)

App selection: I haven't yet thought "You know what I want? An app that toasts bread," then been disappointed when there wasn't one, and shaken my fist in the air uttering curses and deprecations against all iPhone users, whiling away the idyllic hours in their toast-filled Elysium. Again, my expectations are low right now, and maybe one day I'll have a fist-shaking, where's-my-toast moment. But so far I am satisfied with the apps available to me.

Verdict: This 21st Century of yours isn't so bad. A man could get used to it. Thank you, Mrs. Workerbot. You Told Me So.

Now, regarding matters non-telephonic: tell me, have we subjugated the Hottentots, or do they yet pain the Kaiser's armies, as does a thorn in the paw of a great lion?

Mowing the Lawn, Part III

Click to embiggen:

Non Sequiter I: Evolution

by Geaf & Sam


Saxophone
a musical instrument
Sexo Foan
a musical instrument
Sex-o-phonic Horn
a musical instrument
Intercourse Blaster
a musical instrument

The Digital Cash Cow and Those Who Would Milk It to Death

Never let it be said that video game publishers are bad at finding the "Withdrawal" button on a cash machine. Large game companies, second only to the people who brought us the Sweet Valley High books, are truly superb at churning out sequels to successful titles well past the point at which there are any interesting stories left to tell in the franchise. Far be it from me to tell them not to sell a product that people will still pay money for. Hooray capitalism and all that. It's just that sometimes it feels like the beautiful new growth on the forest floor is getting smothered by all the big recycled trees -- like this year's bestselling entries, Pine 2010, Birch: Redux, and Oak 8: The Oakening.

Sam and Grookey were Arguing On The Internet recently about this very issue.

Actual Man's Work for Actual Men

(Thanks to Sam and Grookey for their contributions to this post.)

When I was a boy, neither I nor anyone I knew ever said, "When I grow up, I want to be the kind of man who excels at killing spiders." Some of us may have enjoyed killing or otherwise utilizing spiders for our own youthful purposes, but our fantasies of grown-up freedom and manhood were probably not built around dead arachnids. Secret agents, pirates, and superheroes do not kill spiders -- they are killers of men. They have adventures; they buckle swashes; they conduct daring night-time missions. That's what most of us wanted. We wanted an adult life filled with missions.

Then we grew up, and we looked around and realized that we weren't buckling any swashes. There was a distinct lack of espionage. For most of us -- those of us who are not professional daredevils -- we spend exactly zero minutes of our week jumping cars over other cars, or over any objects at all. Where did our missions go?

The Novelty Trap

Sam just wrote a couple of posts about mowing the lawn.  This happens to be one of the chores with which I have the very worst associations.  I think of hot, humid southern summers, dust & clippings blowing in my eyes, and the invariably negative judgment of my stepfather-at-the-time of anything that I did yard work-wise.  (Not perfect enough.  Do again.)

Far be it from me to dissuade Sam from his enjoyment of mowing the lawn.  But I did worry, reading his post, that he was falling into the Novelty Trap.  (Sam has gone and added an asterisk to his enjoyment of lawn-mowing!  Whatever.  I soldier on.)